Tuesday, May 25, 2010

After a late night trip to Rotten Ronnies, I somehow ended up with a copy of the Vancouver Province daily newspaper. Ended up with, as in did not pay for. So, I began reading. And stopped at the editorial page. You see, I couldn't get past Naomi Lakritz telling Bob Munsch tmi. For something to do, and to feature an issue near and dear to my heart, I've decided to post my response - in letter form - here in my blog.

Further to Naomi Lakritz's Thursday May 20 column ~ Sorry Bob, that was way too Munsch information. I fail to see how an author's lifestyle choices have any bearing at all in anyone's assessment of their books. Landriault's reaction clearly reflects her unfortunate ignorance and intolerance. I wonder what makes her think that an addict is a bad person? And how does that advance the situation? Did she ever consider the notion that an addict is self-medicating ~ that addiction is a symptom of an underlying problem that can never get treated if s/he has to keep his/her dirty little secret? These people are sick and they need treatment, not a moralizing or labelling or berating.

Is Ms. Lakritz suggesting that peaple who struggle with addiction/mental illness should keep their struggles to themselves, because to share these would be unpalatable to some pathetic individuals? How can Munsch's disclosure of addiction and mental illness contribute to stigmatization? I suggest that telling those afflicted with addiction and/or mental illness to keep quiet only exacerbates the shame which goes along with these and hence magnifies the stigmatization. The beauty of the internet lies in the fact that, if one finds a particular website or blog unpalatable, one can leave it with the click of a mouse. You think it's too much information? You don't like it? Does the detail make you queasy? Then don't read it. Simple.

As far as people like Landriault goes, we will always face bigots. And they should definitely NOT be driving the bus where this issue is concerned. Life is not a cafeteria, where we pick and choose the best bits and leave the rest. The broken bits of ourselves will never heal if we continue to deny them! Robert Munsch is a gifted children's story writer. The fact that he suffers mental illnes and addiction is also a part of who he is. Deal with it. Get over it. Privacy is a subjective concept ~ subject to individual interpretation. Feel free to look the other way anytime. Munsch and others like him should not be expected to sterilize the telling of their story on their websites or blogs or wherever to ensure that you don't get too uncomfortable, Ms Lakritz! Get over yourself. How about striving to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem?

Labels

Welcome to Insanity

Depression is such a cruel punishment. There are no fevers, no rashes, no blood tests to send people scurrying in concern. Just the slow erosion of the self, as insidious as any cancer. And, like cancer, it is essentially a solitary experience. A room in hell with only your name on the door. I realize that every person, at some point, takes up residence in one or another of these rooms. But that realization provides no relief from said hell.

It seems to me the basic definition of mental illness: a persistent, painful inability to simply be with someone else. It might be lifelong, or it might descend like a sudden catastrophe, this blankness between ourselves and the rest of the world. The blankness might not even be obvious to others. But on our side of that severed connection, it's hell, a life lived behind glass.

Fear?

Distilling Life

I sometimes like to lose myself in the thought that I am merely a culmination of various chemical reactions occuring at the cellular level of my body. What directs these chemical reactions? Is that where individuality resides? When I consider pharmaceuticals and their effect, it can make sense - chemical reactions fueling existence. Perhaps the Seroquel XR I'm taking bridges some cellular, chemical gap or deficiency. The perceived effect being an insular stabilizing of my mood. Does it all seem a bit too simple? Can we really distill life down to a few chemical reactions?
I wonder. Perhaps, then, divinity resides within those chemical reactions?

Words of Wisdom

"Writing is a deep-sea dive. You need hours just to get into it: down, down, down. If you're called back to the surface every couple of minutes by an email, you can't ever get back down. I have a great friend who became a Twitterer and he says he hasn't written anything for a year."~ David Eggers

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."~ Rumi

"If we do not transform our pain we will surely transmit it."~ Richard Rohr

"We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late."~ Marie Beynon Ray

“Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”~ Leonard Cohen

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.~ Anais Nin

"All of us live in exile in a real way. As St. Paul puts it, we see as 'through a glass darkly,' through an enigma, separated always partially from God and each other."~ Ron Rolheiser, OMI

"Truth is shattered into a thousand pieces when God throws it down to earth."~Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

“The act of building is the physical tangible expression of promise.”~ Unknown

'The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.'~ Dorothea Lange

"Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”~ Thomas Merton, Journal: October 2, 1958

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.”~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

"A diamond only shines after it's been cut."~ Danielle LaPorte

"Having a grievance is like drinking poison and thinking it will kill your enemy."~ Nelson Mandela

“The absence of fear is not courage. The absence of fear is some kind of brain damage.”~ M. Scott Peck

"Art washes away from the soul, the dust of everyday life."~ Picasso

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."~ Thomas Merton

"Worry is like a rocking chair--it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere."~ Unknown

"A photograph is a painting made by the eye, using light as the paintbrush."~ Roxanne Galpin

"The most important events make no stir on their first taking place, nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem hedged about by secrecy. It is concussion, or the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to be suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered about the neighborhood. Corn grows in the night."~ Henry David Thoreau

“The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.”